Abstract

By replacing electronic transmission lines in very large scale integrated circuits with optical communication systems, increased system performance can be achieved.^1,2 Electronic transmission lines suffer from long signal propagation time and large power dissipation as lengths and fanout grow. On the other hand, optical systems are limited by the power dissipation of the injection laser sources and the optical detection speed, fundamentally governed by the supplied optical energy. In this paper, power versus speed tradeoffs are examined for both electrical and optical interconnections. Equations are derived that can be used to determine specific conditions for which optical systems become advantageous. These results are then applied to concurrent wafer scale integrated circuits (WSI) where power, speed, throughput, and cost advantages can be achieved by performing interconnections optically.

© 1987 Optical Society of America